The narrative

Abstract

This last observation in Chapter 2 leads us straight to the main point, namely that we have been discussing the tale of the narrator rather than the novel by Henry James. It is to his story that Olrik’s laws make an interesting contribution, and my contention is that it is the narrator himself who has a vested interest in presenting his story in the true form of a folktale. That is to say, the conformity does not demonstrate the possibility of generalising these laws from the anonymous and collective production of folk literature to the writing of an author pertaining to our literary tradition.